Measuring the position of a mirror surface in point clouds captured by a scanner

A system comprising:

• a memory having computer readable instructions;
• and
• at least one processor for executing the computer readable instructions, the computer readable instructions controlling the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
• receiving an initial location for a modeled reflective surface in a point cloud of an environment and information from which coordinates of points of the point cloud were captured by a device;
• dividing the point cloud into two parts comprising (i) virtual points that are behind the modeled reflective surface with respect to a position from where the points were recorded, and (ii) a remainder of points;
• generating mirrored points by applying a law of reflection to the virtual points with respect to the modeled reflective surface and the position from where the points were recorded;
• registering the mirrored points to the remainder of points in the point cloud;
• identifying and removing the mirrored points that do not align with the remainder of points in the point cloud;
• calculating a set of points that describes an actual reflective surface from the mirrored points having been registered and the virtual points corresponding thereto using the law of reflection;
• and
• updating parameters for the modeled reflective surface from the set of points that describes the actual reflective surface, thereby providing an accurate position and shape for the reflective surface in the point cloud.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:

• receiving an initial location for a modeled reflective surface in a point cloud of an environment and information from which coordinates of points of the point cloud were captured by a device;
• dividing the point cloud into two parts comprising virtual points that are behind the modeled reflective surface with respect to a position from where the points were recorded, and a remainder of points;
• generating mirrored points by applying a law of reflection to the virtual points with respect to the modeled reflective surface and the position from where the points were recorded;
• registering the mirrored points to the remainder of points in the point cloud;
• identifying and removing the mirrored points that do not align with the rest of the points in the point cloud;
• calculating a set of points that describes an actual reflective surface from the mirrored points having been registered and the virtual points corresponding thereto using the law of reflection;
• and
• updating parameters for the modeled reflective surface from the set of points that describes the actual reflective surface, thereby providing an accurate position and shape for the reflective surface in the point cloud.